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Honeyfund done right?

Re: Honeyfund done right?

Why don't you just not register? Then you will get money that you can spend on honeymoon or on these gifts you want. Then you also don't have to worry about the gifts page on your site. IF someone asks what to get you say "we aren't registered but we are saving for honeymoon extras".

Seriously, why are you making more work for yourself when it is just so much easier to do nothing?

When I've gifted through Traveler's Joy and Honeyfund in the past the service fee seemed reasonable to me if I looked at it as the convenience of processing the money electronically, which from my knowledge is comparable to other electronic transfer fees. As someone who can't directly deposit cash easily (USAA) I am already charged a fee when I convert cash to electronic. Therefore I am willing to lose a small percentage for having the money gifted to me electronically. When I see someone with a Traveler's Joy or Honeyfund registry I assume that they are willing to take the service fee loss for the convenience of having it show up directly in their bank account.

For 3% of the deposit you wish to make, I can tell you how to avoid these fees.

"And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me..."

Count me in as someone who thought they were actually purchasing an excursion when in reality it's just a check less the fees.

But no honeyfund does not make it clear and prominent this is what they are doing, it's in the fine print or FAQs. They want people to believe they are gifting these excursions, not taking a percentage and giving the cash to the couple.

No one would ever think it was great to pay for 4 plates at a store registry and the bride and groom get 3. I don't understand why it is acceptable to do with honeymoon registries. If the registry didn't take a cut and the actual event/item/experience/meal was gifted to the couple, I might be ok. Unfortunately, it is not so honeyfunds will never get my money.

Story for context: The last wedding I worked (for a friend, which is why I know these details, lol) the bride had a guest list of 120-ish people. She had a relatively large, regular registry at two stores. She did not have a honeyfund, nor mention on her wedding website that she would prefer cash. She did not tell anyone via word of mouth that she was saving for a honeymoon/house/car (all of which would have been fine and etiquette appropriate).

She still received mostly cash and checks, the total of which was in the 10s of thousands. And remember, that's with a large registry.

People will give you cash for your wedding. You do not need to request it. You do not need to have a website facilitate it. You do not need to tell anyone you want it. People know cash is a great gift, and they will give it to you. Just have a small registry, and you'll be fine.

My
husband and I used Travelers Joy because we have a lot of what we already need,
and we're moving across the state so we didn't want to add to our hauling load.
Traveler's Joy helped with the registry, gave us some other couple's registries
that we could use for examples and inspiration (which was very helpful) and had
an easy process for depositing our gifts after the wedding.

The only
complaint I have is that it was pretty expensive. You can choose to have them collect the
processing fees from guests, (I hope no one would ever do that!) guests and the
overall gift or just from your overall gift. The amount ended up being about
5%. We opted to have them collect from our gift, so we thought that our guests
wouldn't see any fees. But it turns out
our guests still had to pay a .99 per transaction fee and an additional $5.90
per card if they wanted to have one mailed to us saying what honeymoon gift
they had purchased. Many of our guests opted not to send the card and so we
were just notified of their gifts via the automated email.

Overall,
I would probably compare pricing between this and some of the other honeymoon
funding sites, but the end experience with Traveler's Joy wasn't bad at all!

My
husband and I used Travelers Joy because we have a lot of what we already need,
and we're moving across the state so we didn't want to add to our hauling load.
Traveler's Joy helped with the registry, gave us some other couple's registries
that we could use for examples and inspiration (which was very helpful) and had
an easy process for depositing our gifts after the wedding.

The only
complaint I have is that it was pretty expensive. You can choose to have them collect the
processing fees from guests, (I hope no one would ever do that!) guests and the
overall gift or just from your overall gift. The amount ended up being about
5%. We opted to have them collect from our gift, so we thought that our guests
wouldn't see any fees. But it turns out
our guests still had to pay a .99 per transaction fee and an additional $5.90
per card if they wanted to have one mailed to us saying what honeymoon gift
they had purchased. Many of our guests opted not to send the card and so we
were just notified of their gifts via the automated email.

Overall,
I would probably compare pricing between this and some of the other honeymoon
funding sites, but the end experience with Traveler's Joy wasn't bad at all!

Wait, guests had to pay nearly an extra $7 plus the 5% processing fee on your end and you're still giving them a good review? I'm so confused.

My
husband and I used Travelers Joy because we have a lot of what we already need,
and we're moving across the state so we didn't want to add to our hauling load.
Traveler's Joy helped with the registry, gave us some other couple's registries
that we could use for examples and inspiration (which was very helpful) and had
an easy process for depositing our gifts after the wedding.

The only
complaint I have is that it was pretty expensive. You can choose to have them collect the
processing fees from guests, (I hope no one would ever do that!) guests and the
overall gift or just from your overall gift. The amount ended up being about
5%. We opted to have them collect from our gift, so we thought that our guests
wouldn't see any fees. But it turns out
our guests still had to pay a .99 per transaction fee and an additional $5.90
per card if they wanted to have one mailed to us saying what honeymoon gift
they had purchased. Many of our guests opted not to send the card and so we
were just notified of their gifts via the automated email.

Overall,
I would probably compare pricing between this and some of the other honeymoon
funding sites, but the end experience with Traveler's Joy wasn't bad at all!

Wait, guests had to pay nearly an extra $7 plus the 5% processing fee on your end and you're still giving them a good review? I'm so confused.

My
husband and I used Travelers Joy because we have a lot of what we already need,
and we're moving across the state so we didn't want to add to our hauling load.
Traveler's Joy helped with the registry, gave us some other couple's registries
that we could use for examples and inspiration (which was very helpful) and had
an easy process for depositing our gifts after the wedding.

The only
complaint I have is that it was pretty expensive. You can choose to have them collect the
processing fees from guests, (I hope no one would ever do that!) guests and the
overall gift or just from your overall gift. The amount ended up being about
5%. We opted to have them collect from our gift, so we thought that our guests
wouldn't see any fees. But it turns out
our guests still had to pay a .99 per transaction fee and an additional $5.90
per card if they wanted to have one mailed to us saying what honeymoon gift
they had purchased. Many of our guests opted not to send the card and so we
were just notified of their gifts via the automated email.

Overall,
I would probably compare pricing between this and some of the other honeymoon
funding sites, but the end experience with Traveler's Joy wasn't bad at all!

Wow, that's super shitty. I don't know how you're giving them a good review. You must be a vendor.

I like when the person I give a gift to actually gets the full amount. Oh, and when I'm not charged with bullshit fees.

My
husband and I used Travelers Joy because we have a lot of what we already need,
and we're moving across the state so we didn't want to add to our hauling load.
Traveler's Joy helped with the registry, gave us some other couple's registries
that we could use for examples and inspiration (which was very helpful) and had
an easy process for depositing our gifts after the wedding.

The only
complaint I have is that it was pretty expensive. You can choose to have them collect the
processing fees from guests, (I hope no one would ever do that!) guests and the
overall gift or just from your overall gift. The amount ended up being about
5%. We opted to have them collect from our gift, so we thought that our guests
wouldn't see any fees. But it turns out
our guests still had to pay a .99 per transaction fee and an additional $5.90
per card if they wanted to have one mailed to us saying what honeymoon gift
they had purchased. Many of our guests opted not to send the card and so we
were just notified of their gifts via the automated email.

Overall,
I would probably compare pricing between this and some of the other honeymoon
funding sites, but the end experience with Traveler's Joy wasn't bad at all!

If you paid for something (registry fees) that you otherwise could get for free (cash and cheques) you are unbelievably terrible with money.

So your guests had to pay nearly $7 per transaction in addition to you paying a service fee of 5%. Let's say you had 140 guests (70 couples) averaging $100 per couple as a gift: (7x70)+ (5x70) = 840!!

You just paid travelers joy $840 for something you could have gotten for free by not registering!

Seriously?! You might as well have taken out payday loan- you would have paid less in fees and interest.

The only "convenience" of honeyfunds is for whatever company is running them. Not the couple's and not the guests'. The couple doesn't receive whatever "special experience" or whatever the company is offering them - just a check for less than the guests donated.

In other words, honeyfunds are scams.

Couples who want to receive cash as gifts don't need to register. And guests who want to give them cash can just write checks to them directly. There doesn't need to be a middleman company taking a fee for itself.

Hi there, first of all, I know wedding planning is stressful, big hugs. Second, I don't think you need to give an explanation. I have contributed to experiences on 3 Zola registries now and loved doing it and loved hearing about the experience when the couple told me about it. You don't need to write some long disclaimer that you can pay for your honeymoon yourself and they are contributing to a cash fund etc etc. I would simply state: "Your presence at our wedding is gift enough. If you wish to give a gift these are some experiences we are saving up for" or "these are some experiences we are looking forward to in our future together" or don't give an explanation at all. Just "The happy couple is registered at: " on your website. I thought this example zola couple also did a good job: https://www.zola.com/registry/elenaandgreg though, again, I don't really think any explanation is needed and I'd say I do agree with the sentiment that if you say "Your presence is gift enough" but here's a bunch of stuff we want it seems a bit inauthentic.Maybe I'm a lazy millennial, but I pay for convenience all the time. Paying a $3 processing fee or whatever is way more appealing to me than figuring out where the heck my checks are (if I even have any, I pay rent online so can't remember the last time I wrote a check) or going to the ATM and then having to buy a card to put the money in, which is prob more expensive than that processing fee. Maybe it's a regional thing as well as a generational thing. I live in the ***removed for personal info***, we are the birthplace of paying for digital convenience, we uber to work so I guess that's just how we roll here.

On "etiquette": As a guest I preferred to gift experiences and never thought about it as tacky until I started doing research for my own wedding and found all these nasty comments. I prefer gifting experiences because I like contributing to something that will actually strengthen the couple's bond. I don't really see how some towels will do that. I'm pretty sure I paid the processing fees with Zola, but I can't remember, and like I said above, I wouldn't have cared. Again, I get that I could just give cash and give the couple $203 instead of $200, but like I said, convenience is something I'm willing to pay for/ basically the couple is losing $3 or so to give their guests convenience. Fine by me. I think I am now so used to the online registries that I'd be confused if the couple wasn't registered at all... Idk, my fiancé and I do not live together but we are both world travelers and definitely hold value over experiences rather than things so I'm considering not having a registry at all or having a super small one with a few things we do actually need. On the other hand, I really liked contributing to specific experiences through Zola as a guest and maybe my guests would like that too.

Lastly, if you do do the honey fund, from what I have researched it looks like Newlywish and Zola have the lowest fees. However, Blueprint allows you to bring in registries you've already with the stores like Bloomingdales and REI and you can also create an "experiences" room for the honey fund. The processing fee per transaction is 40 cents cents higher than Newlywish and Zola, but with those sites you can't bring in other registries, you just select from items and brands offered on those sites.

I would really like to know the difference between Newlywish and Zola if anyone has experience with that.

You can't be that ***removed for personal info*** digital and technology savvy if you are resurrecting a 4 month old thread to tell the world you are terrible with money.

Also, the $3 processing fee is on top of the 3-10% they take for using the services from the bride and groom. So unless you regularly buy $13 cards, you are really, really bad with money.

You also know people can contribute to experiences without honey funds? I've given money with a note in the card saying 'use this for scuba diving' for mates going to the Seychelles. And my friends received all of the money.

I'll break it down for you: Let's say you have 70 couples at your wedding. Each gives $100 on average. They usually have a $3 fee and anywhere from 3-10% for the B&G depending on credit card etc.

So you just gave away at least $210 in processing fees PLUS anywhere from another $210-$700 in percentages! You just paid conservatively $400+ to a whopping $1000 for something you could have received for free!

And a couples massage doesn't do anything to "strengthen the couple's bond" either. It's not like during their first major fight, they're going to say, "I'd really like to leave you, BUT we got that couple's massage on our honeymoon." They're gifts, you're attaching too much meaning to them.

Where are these people coming from? And do they think they're going to convince us that honeyfunds (and the like) are ok? I'm confused, and being new to the whole wedding thing, I don't know how anyone can begin to assume honeyfunds are fine once they know the details of them...

Hi there, first of all, I know wedding planning is stressful, big hugs. Second, I don't think you need to give an explanation. I have contributed to experiences on 3 Zola registries now and loved doing it and loved hearing about the experience when the couple told me about it. You don't need to write some long disclaimer that you can pay for your honeymoon yourself and they are contributing to a cash fund etc etc. I would simply state: "Your presence at our wedding is gift enough. If you wish to give a gift these are some experiences we are saving up for" or "these are some experiences we are looking forward to in our future together" or don't give an explanation at all. Just "The happy couple is registered at: " on your website. I thought this example zola couple also did a good job: https://www.zola.com/registry/elenaandgreg though, again, I don't really think any explanation is needed and I'd say I do agree with the sentiment that if you say "Your presence is gift enough" but here's a bunch of stuff we want it seems a bit inauthentic.Maybe I'm a lazy millennial, but I pay for convenience all the time. Paying a $3 processing fee or whatever is way more appealing to me than figuring out where the heck my checks are (if I even have any, I pay rent online so can't remember the last time I wrote a check) or going to the ATM and then having to buy a card to put the money in, which is prob more expensive than that processing fee. Maybe it's a regional thing as well as a generational thing. I live in the ***removed for personal info***, we are the birthplace of paying for digital convenience, we uber to work so I guess that's just how we roll here.

On "etiquette": As a guest I preferred to gift experiences and never thought about it as tacky until I started doing research for my own wedding and found all these nasty comments. I prefer gifting experiences because I like contributing to something that will actually strengthen the couple's bond. I don't really see how some towels will do that. I'm pretty sure I paid the processing fees with Zola, but I can't remember, and like I said above, I wouldn't have cared. Again, I get that I could just give cash and give the couple $203 instead of $200, but like I said, convenience is something I'm willing to pay for/ basically the couple is losing $3 or so to give their guests convenience. Fine by me. I think I am now so used to the online registries that I'd be confused if the couple wasn't registered at all... Idk, my fiancé and I do not live together but we are both world travelers and definitely hold value over experiences rather than things so I'm considering not having a registry at all or having a super small one with a few things we do actually need. On the other hand, I really liked contributing to specific experiences through Zola as a guest and maybe my guests would like that too.

Lastly, if you do do the honey fund, from what I have researched it looks like Newlywish and Zola have the lowest fees. However, Blueprint allows you to bring in registries you've already with the stores like Bloomingdales and REI and you can also create an "experiences" room for the honey fund. The processing fee per transaction is 40 cents cents higher than Newlywish and Zola, but with those sites you can't bring in other registries, you just select from items and brands offered on those sites.

I would really like to know the difference between Newlywish and Zola if anyone has experience with that.

I know it's petty but this sentence bugged me. Our generation takes on burdens brought on by the last and since it's a steeper hill with the higher income inequality gap we're seen as lazy. I know I got too much out of this but blah, that generalization is pretty annoying to see everywhere. It's not cool to exploit the stereotype to promote such a bad idea.

Also not cool to post some random couples registry. You've seen "nasty" comments about it but they all explain the same simple thing, processing fees for something as basic as cash is pointless and effed up.

Where are these people coming from? And do they think they're going to convince us that honeyfunds (and the like) are ok? I'm confused, and being new to the whole wedding thing, I don't know how anyone can begin to assume honeyfunds are fine once they know the details of them...

Hi there, first of all, I know wedding planning is stressful, big hugs. Second, I don't think you need to give an explanation. I have contributed to experiences on 3 Zola registries now and loved doing it and loved hearing about the experience when the couple told me about it. You don't need to write some long disclaimer that you can pay for your honeymoon yourself and they are contributing to a cash fund etc etc. I would simply state: "Your presence at our wedding is gift enough. If you wish to give a gift these are some experiences we are saving up for" or "these are some experiences we are looking forward to in our future together" or don't give an explanation at all. Just "The happy couple is registered at: " on your website. I thought this example zola couple also did a good job: https://www.zola.com/registry/elenaandgreg though, again, I don't really think any explanation is needed and I'd say I do agree with the sentiment that if you say "Your presence is gift enough" but here's a bunch of stuff we want it seems a bit inauthentic.Maybe I'm a lazy millennial, but I pay for convenience all the time. Paying a $3 processing fee or whatever is way more appealing to me than figuring out where the heck my checks are (if I even have any, I pay rent online so can't remember the last time I wrote a check) or going to the ATM and then having to buy a card to put the money in, which is prob more expensive than that processing fee. Maybe it's a regional thing as well as a generational thing. I live in the ***removed for personal info***, we are the birthplace of paying for digital convenience, we uber to work so I guess that's just how we roll here.

On "etiquette": As a guest I preferred to gift experiences and never thought about it as tacky until I started doing research for my own wedding and found all these nasty comments. I prefer gifting experiences because I like contributing to something that will actually strengthen the couple's bond. I don't really see how some towels will do that. I'm pretty sure I paid the processing fees with Zola, but I can't remember, and like I said above, I wouldn't have cared. Again, I get that I could just give cash and give the couple $203 instead of $200, but like I said, convenience is something I'm willing to pay for/ basically the couple is losing $3 or so to give their guests convenience. Fine by me. I think I am now so used to the online registries that I'd be confused if the couple wasn't registered at all... Idk, my fiancé and I do not live together but we are both world travelers and definitely hold value over experiences rather than things so I'm considering not having a registry at all or having a super small one with a few things we do actually need. On the other hand, I really liked contributing to specific experiences through Zola as a guest and maybe my guests would like that too.

Lastly, if you do do the honey fund, from what I have researched it looks like Newlywish and Zola have the lowest fees. However, Blueprint allows you to bring in registries you've already with the stores like Bloomingdales and REI and you can also create an "experiences" room for the honey fund. The processing fee per transaction is 40 cents cents higher than Newlywish and Zola, but with those sites you can't bring in other registries, you just select from items and brands offered on those sites.

I would really like to know the difference between Newlywish and Zola if anyone has experience with that.

I know it's petty but this sentence bugged me. Our generation takes on burdens brought on by the last and since it's a steeper hill with the higher income inequality gap we're seen as lazy. I know I got too much out of this but blah, that generalization is pretty annoying to see everywhere. It's not cool to exploit the stereotype to promote such a bad idea.

Also not cool to post some random couples registry. You've seen "nasty" comments about it but they all explain the same simple thing, processing fees for something as basic as cash is pointless and effed up.

Also, I rarely use cheques. In fact, they tried to stop issuing them in the UK a few years ago as everything is done by e-banking. I still know where my chequebook is.

Maybe spend a day organising your life so you aren't wasting money on convenience. How hard is it to make some files with important documents? When you get married you are going to need several documents and you are also going to need to keep your marriage certificate. You say you travel, where do you keep your passports? Honey funds just seems like the most illogical conclusion. When you say "I need to figure out where my chequebook even is" your response should be: "I need to organise my life better" not "how can I pay someone $400-$1000 to solve one minor problem that can be solved in an hour and $16 worth of file folders".

The Zola registry is an example registry they featured as part of their blog. They have several example couples/registries they feature. As for the other things, I'm not interested in arguing with and being insulted by people I don't know on the internet so I'll just leave it at that. Hope everyone has lovely weddings.